we are back with our live coverage. we are going to continue to cover the forecast for you. a live look here down wisconsin avenue and northwest. as you can see the streets are snow covered. there are a few people walking down the middle of the street which is what we've been telling you guys not to do. it is hazardous. if you can move over to the side. a live look at alexandria. this is king street. a few people walking out there as well. >> i'm tony perkins and she's shawn yancy and we have you kofrd. >> conditions getting a little dicier out there. the mayor practically pleading with people to please stay indoors. even as they plow, as you know,

the snow continues to fall so they have to come back and plow again. they need vehicles off the road. they're encouraging everybody to stay indoors. some areas at this point have seen up to 30 inches of snow. and this winter blast is causing dangerous white-out conditions. >> that's right. let's continue our team coverage with sue palka and gwen tolbart. >> there probably are some drifts being mesh ufrd but we have seen higher totals. i just got in a whole bunch of new snow totals and i'll look through all of those but i'll let you see some new information right off the top here and we'll take you to the maps. would they about one of our biggest snowstorms ever in dc and it has cracked the top five coming in at th place at 17.5 issues at reagan national. it's still snowing because

notice in fourth place is 2010 at 17.8. we may be moving in fourth place and this is where we're thinking dulles is at number 2 now. and bwi, 19.8 inches. and it's not done yet. we have a little bit more to go. when is it going to be done, which is what i've been hearing you all asking, we think the accumulating snow wraps up after about 8:00 tonight but we're still in the think of it here. there's one of there's another band coming through dc right now and that pink area is what we're looking for and this causes visibility problems so you get down through southwest, let's see half inch an hour. this is mostly half inch an hour

and we also see that up towards the belts vil-greenville area. this is what we think is the last more significant can't bands with our system. that purple shows up nicely as well. a little bit more coming down from baltimore but we don't see as much of that purple up there as we have been seeing. so i'm hoping that we're going to be down to the lightest snow and maybe that was the last of the big boy bands coming through our area right now. but boy does it do a number on visibility. you can only see for about .25 mile in annapolis. you will occasionally have white-out conditions as this comes through. timing out with our big winds, .5 mile visibility right here in dc right now and .5 mile at dulles. i'm going to send it out to gwen tolbart and she's got a little more on winds which they have really gotten strong this afternoon and the strongest we've seen throughout most of this storm.

gwen, what's the situation? >> reporter: you're absolutely right when you speak about the winds because it's blowing like crazy and as you said causing white-out conditions. if you take a look at the winds they are anywhere from 25 to 35 miles per hour sustained winds across the entire area. and that is really very dangerous. because with all the snow, and we've already talked about just how light and fluffy the snow is. it's blowing around easily and causing hazardous and dangerous conditions out here. it is just flying through here, it is very, very cold as well. and we know that the temperatures are playing a bill role in this. i want to call austin reeves in. you're one of the photographers, he's been out on the road with our reporters, bringing you all the stores of what's been happening and how have you been handling the roads. >> honestly so far it's been treacherous a lot of wliit-out conditions.

i have my jeep here. >> reporter: not only has austin been out there bringing you stories, you have been helping stranded people who shouldn't be out there. >> we went out to help some of our people, because just like everyone else we have vehicles on the road and we have issues in different places. but you come across people that are just stuck. they flag you down on 66 or something like that, pl over and try to help them out when we can. >> reporter: just tell me something now. for some of the people who maybe have to be out there, you just never know maybe a family emergency or something, from driving in your jeep and being able to handle it, what kind of tips would you give them? >> take it slow. watch, try and stay in other

people's tracks. just try got to be careful. even if you have 4 wheel drive, if you don't have tires that are aggressive like that, big tires, high clearance on them, you're just going to get stuck. i got stuck here just trying to clear out snow for people. all it takes hitting up on that snow, your tears lift up, and your tires are spinning. >> reporter: we thank all our our crew guys out there. to everybody else our advice is just stay home. emergency vehicles on the road are what are needed. >> want to give people a hnds up right now. the city of baltimore is going to what they call a phase 3. when means only authorized emergency vehicles are permitted on city roadways. that includes police, fire, ambulance, snow blous and emergency response vehicles. that means everybody else needs to stay off the roads in baltimore. this goes into effect right now

until 6:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. >> i also want to mention very quickly questioning of bge, they are asking folks, they are trying to remind people that as -- that you should clear your appliance vents that are near the snow because otherwise your co levels could rise in your residence. just be careful when you're clearing those off. you don't want to damage those types of vents. be sure to clean all of that off because you don't want to co to rise. >> speaking of utility, we have pepco's vince morris on the phone. >> hi to both you and tony. thanks for having us on. we do have a few scattered outages. the total is really small. we're talking 451 customers,

which, in a system as large as us with 12.3 million people served, we're talking a fraction of a percent. so the numbers are fairly good. the breakdown in montgomery is about 300 prince george's county is 1 and the district is 100 customers. the numbers are quite good. we feel relieved that our distribution has held up so well against this storm. but we're telling people that we're not out of the clear yet. we need to get through tonight and see where we stand tomorrow. >> let's talk a little about tonight and tomorrow. we were just listening to sue palka. the winds continue to be a factor. continue to see some of the heavier snow bands come through. so we know we're not out of the woods yet. but i want to ask you about some of the reasons for the low numbers and we're very happy that the numbers are low. talk to me about the snow. has it not been -- obviously there's a lot of snow, but the weight of the snow, has it not been what you all expected?

>> well, it's hard. even sue would say you can't project 100 % certainty on these things. we knew we were going to get wallped and we did. it's one of the biggest storms that's hit the district in history. but in terms of the consistency of the snow, how light and fluffy it is, that's been a nice surprise. we didn't realize how light it would be and that has a huge benefit in that it's less likely to take down tree limbs and cause power lines to fail. so the fact is the nature of the snow has actually worked in our favor. but again, i'll say tony, we don't know what tonight is going to bring and the truth is customers should still be prepared for outages. because we don't know what's going to happen this evening with the winds kick up and if we get a snow that turns wetter and icier, we could still have some increased outages this evening. >> let me ask you, as we talk

about heading into the overnight hours, certainly we have seen the wind kicked up in some of our live shots, we can see the flags waiving, we can see the snow blowing. if by chance we do start to see more power outages overnight, what sort of plans do you have in place? do you have extra crews here to help out just in case? >> oh, absolutely. we've been planning for that for quite some time. we have crews from all up and down the mid atlantic region that are available to us. really a thousand different men that we could put to work for us if the need arises. we in addition have our own staff at pepco. in many cases we have work crews i'dling in trucks ready to respond at first notice there's an outage. even though there's a few hundred people out in our region and of course for us any one customer out is too many, but we're in good shape to respond

to any and all of those outages should they increase over the next course of the 12-24 hours. >> we're going to knock on wood for you guys and for everybody out there right now who has pepco. we hope that things will continue just like this. vince morris, thanks for checking in. >> thank you. be safe. >> obviously some of the efforts cutting back those trees and all of that paying off during the course of this storm. let's go over some of those numbers. >> you heard vincent talk about the pepco numbers, about 440 pepco customers are currently without power. these numbers are extraordinarily low. shawn, you made a good point. if you're without power, it's not good. but the numbers are low. dominion reports 680 customers in the dark, bge 941, and almost 1,800 smeco customers are currently without power. now, if you do lose power, here are the numbers to call.

pepco: 877-pepco 62. for dominion power: 866-dom-help and for bge, 877-778-2222. we have all of those numbers on our website, fox5dc.com. >> and we should mention many times you can go to their websites, you can actually see where those averages are. you can go right into your neighborhoods and see if you're affected. to montgomery county we go right now where pepco is reporting about 400 outages. about half of them lost power when a roof partially collapsed. >> paul wagner is live in gaithersburg with that and more. paul? >> reporter: yes, a real unfortunate story to tell you about at the potomac oaks

condominium. there was a partial collapse of a utility building and because of that, all of the utilities at that complex had to be shut off. they had to shut down the water, the power, the gas. and then they sent out an e-mail that is the condo association sent out an e-mail to everybody saying look, we're not going to be able to bring and restore any kind of power to you or any kind of gas or heat for the next several days. so what we're going to do is we're going to bring in some buses. and the city of gaithersburg is going to open a recreation center. we can put you on these buses and we can take you over to the recreation center. you can bring your pet if you would like. and you can stay there for the next 24 hours. the red cross will come, they will feed you and take care of you. however, the condo association basically said that because of the problem, because of the partial collapse, they would not be able to bring back and restore any of this power or gas for the next several days.

so people would be out after that 24-hour period. we've talked to a number of people there. today they were very, very upset. here's what some of them had to say. >> i think this was preventible. i mean, like power losses, cable, everything else, there's nothing you can do about it. but the roof, they should start clearing the roof. because they said it's going to be over 2 feet of snow and it's going to be heavy. >> so you're pretty upset. >> yes. >> of course. what are you going to do. it's something that could be prevented, yes? the cable falling down, there's nothing you can do about it. but this is much serious, it's going to take probably much more time than usual. >> reporter: i've talked to a couple of residents that are upset. are you upset? >> of course. you pay the condo association to maintain everything sandy mean obviously this seems like it could have been a freak accident with the roof collapsing but you

hope that everything was well maintained going into this. >> that's 250 units that were affected. imagine that. so a number of people did tell me that they were looking for hotels. they did find some hotels in the area amazingly, because so many people were going and staying in hotels or going to hotels because they had problems of their own. so a lot of the hotels were booked. but they told me they were able to find some. so really unfortunate situation again. the potomac oaks condominium and they are without power and heat there for the next several days. let me show you where we are in the kentland and get a look at some of the snow that has piled up here in the last couple of hours. they've done an incredible job here clearing the parking lot outside the giant. but look at all this snow. can you imagine? it's going to take maybe months to melt this stuff. once this blizzard goes through. i remember there was a story i

think in boston, when boston got hit so bad last year, their snow mounds didn't melt until like july or something like that. so just an incredible amount of snow out here. we want to tell you also that when we were out on the roads earlier today, they were really treacherous. and very, very bad. and the plows are just not able to keep up. and we have a big truck. we were able to get by. but i can't tell you how nasty the roads are. a couple of the things i wanted to point out too is that the fire department is asking that if you can go out and dig out around your fire hydrant, that's really going to help them quite a bit. another thing i wanted to point out too is that if you have a problem in your neighborhood that's not an emergency but you need some help from the county, you can call the 311 system. they are staffed around the clock and have been since yesterday. so you can give them a call if you have any issues. and they will hopefully take

care of it for you. one other thing i wanted to point out is tony and shawn, you had said maybe you could bring paul wagner some coffee because he really wanted some coffee and some lovely folks did do that. the gm here at giant brought me this cup of coffee and mike and kelly brought us coffee and so did a guy named tim obrain. >> thank you guys. look that community coming together. paul i hope you're feeling better. yes, drink up the coffee. keep yourself nice and warm. you were talking earlier about those huge mounds of snow we can see them piling up behind you. if you remember was it snow-maggedeon, we took all the snow we had over to what's the stadium? >> rfk stadium. >> that's right they did. it will be interesting we'll find out if they might do that again with this one. >> we'll check back in with you

in a few pauly. stay warm. >> reporter: thank you. >> right now we want to go to mannasas virginia where alexandra limon is. hi, alex. >> reporter: i took your advice, i now have my hat on, i have two pairs of gloves and i decided i might as well take a seat because i seriously keep sinking into this huge pile of snow. you can't just stand. it is so deep. but the problem is if you're not on this, you're essentially almost in the road where plows keep coming by nonstop. and the road is where i found this pair what are you doing out here? >> i've got nike freestyles on. >> why are you outside? >> we went to get food at the grocery store. >> was it open? >> we got board. >> you guys stoeld me you're staying in this hotel as a

precaution just in case the power went out? >> just for fun also. because we've never snowed in together so we were like why not stay in at a hotel and have fun. >> reporter: so you're making the most of it by walking around outside. i want to point out you have no gloves on. this seems like a really bad idea. so maybe you should get on your way and get warm. thank you for stopping to talk to us. and actually we've talked to quite a few people out here. okay. well, so that just happened. i'm just going to sit back down like i was before. that's why i was sitting. i just keep sinking into these huge piles of snow the good thing is that plows keep coming, the virginia department of transportation says they have about 13,000 pieces of equipment continuously making passes on the virginia roads trying to keep them clear, but as they do that, more and more snow keeps falling. so that's still why they're recommending people stay off the road. but you can see a car driving by

us right now. there are people out and about walking as the sunset, it's now 24 degrees out here. it's a bad idea to be out here driving. the department of transportation can't keep up with the snow that's falling. there's also ice starting to form underneath that. so it's not a safe situation. and while we were trying to make light of it and have some fun, the best idea is to just stay inside. guys, i'll send it back to you. >> you are absolutely right. we're glad you're okay out there. be careful as you go back and get in the warmth. just quickly, note of housekeeping some of you guys have been tweeting me, asking me what's wrong with my arm. i fell on the stairs, hit the bone, it swelled up really bad today and i found out it's something called olecranon bursitis it's under ice right

now. >> we want to go to prince george's county now, is that correct? director of emergency management ronny gill is on the phone with us. are you there? >> yes, sir, i'm here. >> thank you for joining us. first of all we haven't talked to prince george's county in a little while so let's get up to date on the road conditions there. and what kind of emergency response you've had to make over the last few hours. >> concerning emergency responses, we've been pretty well off. we have had a couple of ems units get stuck in different snow banks and things of that nature. but for the most part weecht had any issues. regarding the snow removal, one time or a couple of times during the day, we've had the blizzard-like conditions and we had to pull the trucks off. as far as i know the last call they were back on the roads plowing. so we are beginning to make some

head way. >> that is good news to hear about the roads. let me ask you about other calls for other sorts of emergencies. how have you guys been handling that? and have you had a high number of phone calls? >> for the most part, the call volume has not been high. most of the residents have heeded the suggestions to recommendations to just stay off the roads. so that eliminates calls for service, for cars, broke down for vehicles being stranded, for folks being stranded. so by folks listening to what every gomplets or jurisdiction has stated has really helped. >> that is certainly good news. how are you guys doing getting around there on the roadways? and i'm talking about the emergency, the first responders, how are they doing? we see what the side streets look like. they're not great. we know everybody is doing their best with the main roads. but how are they able to get around? >> one good thing with the declaration in the state, we were able to get state assets from the national guard. so we have the ability to

utilize high terrain vehicles. humvee-type vehicles. so if we get into situations where we need to utilize the bigger vehicles, we have those assets at our disposal. >> that is certainly some good news. i'm glad to hear, everything seems so far so good. >> i was going to say it's so far so good. i think a couple of things that we need to make sure that our residents know. it was mentioned earlier, if you have a fire hydrant in your location, please assist the fire decht by digging that hydrant out. secondly, tomorrow a lot of folks are going to get out and begin shoveling this snow out. please be careful. shovel careful. do it in four-hour intervals and when you feel exerted, sit down, take a rest. >> for very good reason. if fact you guys had a situation we understand that was down in i believe in fort washington earlier where you had a gentleman who may have suffered

a cardiac arrest while he was out shoveling. >> unfortunately, that does appear to be the case. >> all right. well certainly we hope people will heed your advice. r ronnie gill, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> obviously the snow conditions have affected travel all across the region, the south, the mid atlantic and to the northeast as well. >> so many people stranded trying to get to dc and baltimore or out of the city. let's check in with jim lokay to get an update on the roads and the air. >> well, shawn, first of all you mentioned amtrak before and a lot of people who are taking amtrak, it is running in a very limited capacity. you can go online or call them to get a sense of how your particular trip would fare. let me give you a sense of the airports. obviously we have three and two of them, dulles and national are under the same jurisdiction. but we have a couple of updates for you. right now we know the runways

over at dulles and national are both shut down entirely. they're going to be shut down tomorrow as well. so those are going to be absolutely no go for you. over at bwi, the runways are closed right now for snow removal. they don't know if that's going to be the case tomorrow but i'll tell you what, a lot of these airlines, it's very likely that's going to be the case. because it's not just the airport but it's also the airlines. and when you talk about the way these airlines are set up, if there's problems in one city, no matter if the flight is going out to las vegas, it throws a whole wrench in the system there. a greyhound, most routes in and out of dc have been cancelled through tomorrow. i believe that per statains to megabus as well. we mentioned this quite a bit yesterday. when you talk about the different airlines and the options that you have. most of the major airlines, in fact i believe all of them if

they want to continue to be considered human are going to waive your change fees. however some are going to be firm on when they want you to fly out of the region. at this point we don't know what the breakdown is going to be depending where you go. work with your airlines. you've got to be patient because you're going to be on hold for a long time. especially if your particular airline if they're overwhelmed. so that's what it looks like right now. i'm tweeting out any new information we get in terms of travel, but obviously no matter where you go, you're not going to get there easily considering all the problems on the roads for the time being. right now send it back to you upstairs. >> thank you very much jim. >> we're going to have much more with our coverage with the blizzard of 2016 including more reports from all across the region in just a few moments. stay with us. we'll be right back.

wow. the internet is crazy fast here. i know, right? it's so nice to have everyone over. hi hey. mmm. i just laid an egg. does anybody want it? joey, you want some gasoline? yes, please. mom, guess what? i married a clown and we're having tiny little clown babies. mhm. i just bought a hammer. with internet fast enough for everyone, your guests might get a bit carried away. get out of the past. get fios.

everybody is asking, not only here but in the building but online, are we almost done, is this almost over and this is the big picture behind me. we will be seeing this wind down in the next couple of hours i believe and we don't see a lot of whole accumulation but we will see what our model is showing. where is the snow, we're seeing fewer and fewer of those bright pink areas indicating the heaviest snow. that's where it comes down at .5 her hour. i still have a pretty good batch but this is continuing to move again from south to north and we hope it will keep on moving. we see it also here on our storm

tracker radar. there's that bigger picture again. our storm i believe is jogging just a little bit farther to the east. you've heard what's happened in new york and boss done it's way more snow than they were expecting so they're dealing with the blizzard conditions up there. and just fyi we remain under the blizzard warning until tomorrow morning. what are we dealing with in terms of additional accumulation. from this point going forward, you know we've had about 20 to 30 and in some places more than that out to the west. so what are we getting on top of what we already have? right now our model is going to cap it off with about an additional 2 inches, maybe 3 in a few spots and a little bit less to the south and west. so we're just about done. if we continue to get more snow at reagan national, that is going to put us in fourth place for snowiest storm and we'll keep an eye on all of that. right now that hasn't happened just yet. we're still dealing with the strong winds and visibility issues. .25 visibility at annapolis, .5

at quantico and washington and dulles as well. and it looks like annapolis. and the winds remain high. we're missing the gust at the top of the hour at reagan national but i would imagine it's somewhere in the vicinity of 345. 31 as we look out towards annapolis. a quick look at some of the storm reports and what i can do is each of these little individual reports can tell us what we've had. so i'll hover over this one and we'll get to it here. let me see if it will come one more time here. all of these are individual snow reports and hopefully at some point i can get that. i'm going to try one more time.

some of you are asking towards the panned handle. 30 inches there. 36.5. you were asking me about some of the bigger totals, that would be one of them. let's get into loudoun county. we've had a report of 30 in lees burg, now 32 for leesburg. these are some real jackpot areas as you can imagine. how about waldorf? 20.5 down there. let's see if i can slide down just a little bit the winds

continue up and zoun the coast. we're still getting a gust of 38 at ocean city. the next high tide is around 7:30. i hope things improve as the winds continue to shift and blow out some of the water in the back bays and slowly but surely see our storm moving away. a couple hours for the worst of it and gradual improvement through the night. the winds do not diminish until sometime mid to late morning tomorrow. shawn, tony back to you. >> sue, you've got us caught up now. so we know when the winds will diminish, when the snow might end. we certainly appreciate it. we're getting tweets now give sue hugs. >> i will take it. >> let's get up to date on what's happening in old town alexandria. tom fitzgerald is there with

more there it's lightened up a lot. a marked difference. those gusts seem to have disappeared right now and we're just looking at this light snow that you see in front of the camera lens right now. we want to check in with craig fifer. we've been here all day. you've got 15 square miles in here. i think you said you've got about 60 plows. >> 70. >> reporter: 70. how has it been getting the snow off these roads and where are your trouble spots right now? >> we've been doing about as well as can be expected given the historic nature of the storm. in the last 24 hours we've gotten over 20 inches of snow and typically an entire wirnlt season we get 15 inches. so we're over our average in 24 hours. makes it difficult to clear the roads and our first priority is making sure emergency vehicles can get through. we've already had some fire trucks today get stuck so we

want to make sure that that's the top priority. unfortunately that means we won't be able to get to residential streets today while we continue the objective of clearing the priority routes. >> we've been talking about patience the last couple of days and everybody is in a good mood today because the snow is lighter and we seem to be towards the end of this. talk to me about patience amongst people as these next coming days come as far as how the city is going to approach this and what you want to continue here. >> so far people have been great. we've gotten a lot of support. of course people are concerned and frustrated and we understand that. we want to get people out as soon as possible. right now it is way too dangerous to drive. nobody should be on the roads. we ask people not to drive, not to walk, not to put anything in the roads so that our plows can do the work. tomorrow we're going to do our best to move on to secondary routes. hopefully we can reach some residential streets but it's possible that it may take a bit longer. that's why we always ask people

to be prepared to stay inside for a while. >> thank you very much. craig fifer. look what's coming down the street. we've seen a lot of this all day long. these plows and these trucks going through the streets of the city of alexandria. and i would say probably at about 7:00 last night we saw our first one. and boy, they've been going around the clock. craig, thanks for your time. we appreciate it. we'll check back with you later. want to talk to some of the good people who have come out here for the city of alexandria. they're dressed for it, they've got the gear, the goggles, the hat. you didn't believe this was going to be a blizzard, did you? >> i thought it was going to be a dusting. i was convinced at about an hour ago. sue, i'm sorry i didn't believe you. all right. you're forgiven. and you're on your way to chad

wick's right now. what's on the menu? >> blizzard specials. >> and a boor. >> pbr. >> you are a big spender. big old can of beer. we've got to show tyler before we go anywhere. now yesterday at about 3:00 in the afternoon, i looked out and i saw one of our assignment editeres in a pair of cargo shorts. what are you doing? >> i'm a bartender we're open full menu come see me. fish market. >> you look good. now what we're going to do is we're going to stay here. i'm going to let them talk behind me because god knows what they're going to say. for the most part though, i'm happy to report -- >> fish market, tonight.

right there. on the 100 block of king street. has the premier clam chowder. >> we got it. >> reporter: so in case you didn't hear, there's clam chowder at the fish market. we're really happy this weather is starting to the change the way it has. it's a good development. the way that craig fifer said, for the most pasht of the worst of this has passed. we're in a better place than we were two hours ago. but clearly this is not going away over the next couple of hours. you heard about what they said about having to get to the side streets. it's going to take a couple of days. i've heard from some people on twitter tonight especially out in loudoun county. they really got hammered out there. it's going to be a while before

we can get these streets plowed. we're really lucky where we are with the power outages. craig correct me if i'm wrong, you said there were no power outages in the city of alexandria? >> we're not aware of any. that's a good thing. you know what's going to keep that like that? people off the roads. if people start getting into cars and driving into telephone polls, it's going to be a different situation in the next couple of days. so if you like that electricity, stay at home and enjoy it because that's the best way to keep our lights on for the next couple of days. i any we got through that relatively unscathed. we had a close call there. >> you handled it wonderfully. you know, it's nice people are excited. >> reporter: you know, shawn. the one thing you don't ever want to be when you're in this situation, i know you've been in this situation, you don't want to be the guy that ends up on youtube. [ laughter ] >> that is true. >> look what happened to this reporter on live television. >> that is true.

>> reporter: so it can be like swimming with sharks sometimes. you've got to feel it out as you go along. but the folks -- i can't say enough about the good people of the city of alexandria. they've been great to us in the two days we've been here. they have been nothing but fantastic. >> i grew up very close to there and you're right. >> jennifer davis is live in fairfax. she's near fair oaks. jen, you have been there for the past two days. are conditions improving, staying the same or getting worse? >> reporter: i think they're improving. my face doesn't hurt so much. i'm not getting wind blasted. we still have the snow blowing around, but it does not feel as bad as it has, even just a few hours ago. you know, when you stop and ask yourself so what have i done in the last 24 hours, i'm not sure anyone is going to have accomplished as much as this owner of this gas station. check this out single handedly the owner of the briar's oak gas

station has plowed the lot and take a look. this is a pretty impressive display of his work. not to mention that he has remained open for the last 24 hours and still has gas, which is not something that a lot of gas stations around the area can say. now just on the other side of this gas station there's a police and fire station. they also have been working so very hard. we have been seeing crews head out with lights and sirens even a few hours ago when it was very difficult to see and there were near white-out conditions here. they tell us their fire trucks are doing okay, they've got chains on their ambulances, but they had to reach out and borrow 4 by 4s. if you get a call for service and it's not a marked car, they will have identification, they will have their badges to prove who they are but they might not be in a marked car. you up the hill here, there's a hilton garden inn.

25 hard-working people stayed behind to make sure that they could handle what was a sold-out capacity there. 125 guest rooms all full. we talked with a woman earlier. she had her two children with her and they were camping out the athe hotel while mom worked really hard. there are so many ways that people are working through this storm. vdot is asking for a little help from the public out there and they say even when the snow stops, please if you can, stay off these roads tomorrow. this is route 50. it's been pretty empty although i have to see we're starting to see some people venture out. vdot is worried that's going to be the case. that you just want to get out for some fresh air and go somewhere but they're asking you don't do that today and that you don't do that tomorrow. because their crews still have so much work to do and they really need people to be off the roads. and the vdot spokeswoman said i know people are sick of hearing us say stay off the roads. i told her we'll stop saying once people stop doing it.

that's really the way it needs to be. if you stay off we won't have to keep repeating it. but it's very, very important. they just tweeted a picture not long ago, vdot did, i retweeted it, a snow plow flipped over on one of our highways. so you know, we're not joking around here. this is very serious stuff. it's challenging even for those drivers as well. just seeing some cars go by here. please don't do that. as we speak there goes another ambulance. so again, you know, they really need some space to do the work, the very important work that they're doing. back do you guys. >> all right, jennifer davis with the very latest out there. thank you. >> want to mention very quickly some new information coming in from annapolis. annapolis transit service is reporting that all annapolis transit services and parking enforcement services are suspended for tomorrow sunday january 24th. starting to get some information about what's happening in some

of the jurisdiction tomorrow and even on monday. so as we get more word on that, we'll bring it to you. >> folks are already asking about school. we heard earlier dc mayor muriel bowser say if they make a decision, it might be tomorrow evening so stay posted for that. we also heard that reagan national and dulles, their runways will be closed tomorrow, meaning no flights going in, no flights going out. >> let's get more info on some of the neighborhoods around town. will thomas standing right oud side the fox studios here in northwest. will? >> reporter: for those of you at home right now saying it is just too cold to even go outside and poke around, you're smart. it is very cold, the wind is whipping up as you've seen in these live shots. we're along wisconsin avenue a major artery in a snow emergency route in dc and very few cars are on the road. this is one of the first cars i've seen in the last several minutes. so people are certainly taking these warnings seriously and staying off the roads, which is a good idea. i did meet someone walking home

from the fire station. harry is a montgomery county firefighter and emt. so what kind of calls are you seeing? >> it's mostly the kind of regular stuff kind of aggravated by the snow, having some car accidents, but it's a lot of people overexerting themselves shoveling snow and honestly ordinary ailments. >> even in school when you're learning to do what you do, they tell you about the possibility of heart attacks. why is that? i know for you it's common sense but for a lot of people, they're going to be really contemplating digging themselves out starting tomorrow. so what are you seeing and what's your warning? >> honestly when people you're sitting down at home relaxing with the snow and you go out and start shoveling and snow is heavier than people realize and you get more tired quicker than you realize before you know you're putting strain on your heart. you need to take it easy. don't do all the driveway in one go. if you can't do it, take a break

it will still be there tomorrow or later in the day. that's honestly one of the more surprising things you see is heart attacks during shoveling. >> reporter: many of you know this. when you're holed up at home, you might be opening up the wine, having some beers and that can dehydrate you and that probably isn't going to help either. >> no, certainly not. especially if you lull yourself into a false sense of security. you start having a couple of drinks and before you know it you're not concentrating on your health and what's going on around you and the environment and staying aware and staying focused. >> reporter: so harry would say take it easy, do it in stages. have some water before and during. i also thought this was very interesting. you may be wondering how do the firefighters, the emts respond to calls. as you know most of these side streets have not been addressed yet by road crews. they're working on the major arteries. how does this work? >> cautiously, first of all.

but typically we have a unit in front with a plow so we can plow our way to a call and if you happen to be behind an ambulance lights and sirens, please try to stay back. typically we have chains on our wheels so we can take some of the tougher terrain. fire trucks are heavy. >> reporter: so basically you have a lead car and that car is the plow that can kind of get you through. >> exactly. unless the snow is really building up, we can handle any street if we need to. >> reporter: in the few minutes we were waiting to go on, harry said i grew up in new york city so that means he knows his way around one of these. and you said you were going to show people the proper way to shovel. i imagine a lot of it has to did with legs. >> try not to put your back too much into it. get your legs in a good stance. try to keep your back straight a little and put the weight on your legs and try not to put too

much weight on your knees either. >> reporter: harry weiss, firefighter with montgomery county. thank you for the work you do especially in the middle of a blizzard. back to you. >> thank you for showing how to do that properly. unfortunately we heard about a death in prince george's county earlier this morning that may have been the result of some shoveling. a gentleman went into cardiac arrest. those are some tips we need to hear. >> we're going to talk about that a little later on. we want to get you updated on the weather conditions across the region. >> we're going to begin with a look at radar tony and shawn because we still have a few little bands that are going to try to come through here tonight and we're watching it very closely if you take a look here you can see that darker purple is what we're talking about and those are some heavier bands testify snowfall. so we still have a few of those to deal with before it's all said and done. and that is one thing we're watching. now, the big picture as this thing continues to spin off the

mid atlantic is it's heading straight up to new england and they are getting hit with it. and you can see how the spin of this is going on across areas of lower southern maryland where they dealt with not only some rain but some sleet earlier, they're now running into the colder air. there is drier air trying to come into this now. this is going to make a difference for us in terms of how much this is going to be sticking around and how long and how it ends up affecting us once it does hit the ground. winds are a major factor. if you saw when i was outside, very gusty out there and winds are currently gusting from 18-37 miles per hour and that's causing white-out conditions. so very hazardous. you can see basically anywhere from .75 mile to only .50 mile visibility. this is something to really take into consideration if you do have to venture out, we're really hoping that you won't. temperatures falling well below freezing tonight, into the 20s across the board everywhere. we've got wind chills so it

feels it's only 8, 9, 10 degrees outside. with these temperatures dropping and we see all that moisture on the untreated surfaces, we do know that that also is a danger. here's what we're talking about for your forecast then. 19 degrees for tonight. tomorrow only 32 degrees. we'll have some sunshine. but don't be fooled by it. the winds are going to be kicking in from the northwest, 15-25 miles per hour and that means it's only going to feel like it's in the teens and the single digits. be safe out there. back to you. >> being safe is very, very important. speaking of being safe we're going to talk to a cardiologist and a physician director with med star health and vascular institute. we were just talking a short time ago about a gentleman who they believe had a cardiac arrest while out shoveling. >> what types of tips. >> i think the advice that the firefighter you had on earlier

is good advice. i think it's important to remember that there are a couple of things about shoveling snow that are particularly hazardous to cardiovascular health, particularly in people who do not exercise regularly who go out there and do things that they otherwise wouldn't do. shoveling snow is hard work. it's isometric work, as opposed to dynamic work. primarily it's lifting, straining. the kind of work that is most burdensome on the heart and cardiovascular system. and in addition it's kind of goal-directed work. you go out there and you say gosh, i don't feel great but i've got to get my driveway cleaned out, i've got to get my sidewalk cliind out. unlike if you were walking on a treadmill and you didn't feel good you would get off and say i'm going to do this tomorrow. there's kind of a goal direction

i think that gets people to do things where they might ordinarily stop. i think it's also important to remember that the cold weather is a huge factor. we've got wind chills that are close to zero. and cold weather causes constriction of the blood vessels. reducing flow to vital organs, including the heart, causing your blood pressure to go up. so if you said what's the perfect storm, no pun intended, for a cardiac event you would say take an unfit or not entirely fit person, have them do heavy exercise that they haven't done before toward a goal, and do it in an environment where their blood vessels are constricted and the environment is unfavorable. so you know, i think people who are at risk for cardiovascular disease by virtue of a whole variety of things, including age, but certainly anyone who's

got a history of cardiovascular disease needs to be cautious, thoughtful, work slowly. if they don't feel well, they need to stop. someone already made the comment that if you have a problem, it's going to be that much more difficult for first responders to bring you to medical attention. and you know, time is of the essence if you've got a cardiac event cooking. so it's not the right time, if there ever is a right time, to have an event. and so i think as usual, common sense and after all, shoveling snow, that's why god made teenagers, as far as i'm concerned. >> i'm with you there. let me ask you real quick, are there any other obvious signs, maybe they're not so obvious signs. say you are out shovelling, you think hey i'm a healthy person you might be healthy. but what are some of the signs if someone feels something, what should they know i need to go

inside, i need to call someone. >> i would look at any sort of discomfort, tightness in the chest area, a shortness of breath, certainly if you start to perspire heavily, that can sometimes be a sign of a cardiac event. but fundamentally, if you don't feel well, if it doesn't feel good, you ought to stop and rest and make sure that you feel back to your baseline before you do anything. and this is an extraordinary snow event and if you looked at the amount of snow, for example, in a person's driveway or in the sidewalk or if you sort of measured that in pounds of snow that you've got to lift, the amount is exceptional. you know, if someone said you're going to lift several hundred pounds over the next few minutes with your arms and legs, i think people would be more cognizant

of the amount of work they're doing particularly in an unfavorable environment. and as our colleague, as the firefighter mentioned, you know, while we think about cardiac events as being associated with snow shoveling, and i'm a cardiologist, we don't want to forget that an awful lot of people slip and fall, an awful lot of people do things to their backs. and so again, one needs to be cognizant, particularly if you're not somebody who's trained for this. if you were going to do a marathon and you trained for weeks and weeks and weeks before you did it and in the same respect the notion of going out and shoveling snow, if this is not something in the sense you've trained for makes no sense whatsoever. >> all makes very good sense. we certainly appreciate you for joining us, giving us those tips, the warning signs and what we need to do in case of an emergency. you stay safe, sir. >> you too, thanks very much.

>> hearing what he has to say, i've put myself in that situation sometimes. i don't exercise like i should and then i go out and do that. and it's scary. it is scary. >> you heard what he said, right? shoveling is for teenagers, tony. >> i know. and i'm well past that. speaking of teenagers, frederick county schools closed on monday. that word just into the news room. i want to mention one other thing quickly. reaching out to some of the dc city council members. kenny mcduffie says crews are still plowing right now in ward 5. right now primary roads are passable but he says many secondary and residential streets are less so. so you want to be aware of that. that is in ward 5. he also tweeted out some video of some of the plows out there, woulding. i retweeted it. check it out. >> you guys stick around. we will be right back with much more. neighborhood,i feel like

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